In one of the biggest ever mobilisation of Electricity Employees and Engineers in the Delhi, on 8th December 2014, nearly 10,000 electricity employees and engineers, representing almost all the states of India, assembled at Jantar mantar under the banner of National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees & Engineers (NCCOEEE), demanding the review of anti people proposal of Electricity Act 2003 forwarded a memorandum to the power minister

The procession was addressed by Tapansen, General secretary CITU, A B Bardan, President, AIFEE, K O Habib President, EEFI, Prasanta N Choudhari General Secretary EEFI, P. Rantakar Rao, Secretary General AIPEF, V Ashok Kumar, General secretary, AIFOPDE, S Rathinathapathi, General Secretary TNEB P.W., V.K. Dubey and other leaders. The leaders like A.K Padmanabhan, President , CITU met with employees from different state and exhilarated the atmosphere. The procession was started at 11 am and even continued to 2 PM even without leaving for lunch showed the zealosnes of the employees in listening to the speakers . The atmosphere was vibrant with slogans against the draft amendment of 2003 which include the mandatory unbundling of the distribution sector and creation of exclusive licences to handle the retail supply business. The slogans were raised by different trade unions from different states in their own mother tongues and they also aroused slogans by combining with employees of other state. This made the procession more colourful and showed the integration of people of different regions fighting for a common cause. The atmosphere was very vibrant and their slogans were so powerful with all hope that this would be an eye opener to the honourable power minister.

Addressing the employees, the leaders pointed out that the proposals would have serious implications to the electricity industry, consumers, and employees [of power utilities]. The effort of the Ministry is to further fast track commercialisation of the sector through removal of entry barriers for private sector in the retail supply of electricity which will directly help major players like Adani, Reliance etc. This grabbed the attention of employees and they applaud it with loud slogans. The leaders were also pointed out that the proposed amendments in the stipulations under Section 11 of the Act is only to help the private sector because Section 11 of the existing act had given discretionary powers to the State to curtail the sale of power generated by the private sector (using the State’s resources) outside the State during times of acute power shortage within the State.

The conclusion of all the speeches is rather same that the proposal is to allow new private players entry into electricity distribution sector without the burden of setting up and maintaining the distribution infrastructure. Cherry picking of high value consumers by the new entrants is explicitly allowed through the draft proposals, but the existing act inhibited such cherry picking. Thus the existing distribution utilities which will continue to be the deemed sales licensee and the successor sales utilities in the public sector will be burdened with the low value consumer segment which is huge in number and the new entrants can flurt with the few high value consumers. They even make it more simple by explaining “the game plan is simple and evident. Let the high value consumers who are already paying at par with or higher than the cost of electricity (due to inbuilt cross subsidy in tariff) be served through new entrants in the electricity sales business, which could be a win-win situation for both the new entrant and the high value consumers. This segment is expected to breed the thirst for profit of the operators in the power market. The traders could/must act as sales licensee also to penetrate among high value consumers and achieve direct sales from the mushrooming power market. At the same time let the successor sales licensees of the incumbent distribution licensees be burdened with low value consumers and the high prices derived in the bulk power market. Of course, the reformists will allow the big private players into the distribution sector but this will really going to affect the low value consumers, the so called crores of am admi people of India.

The consolidation of Electricity employees and Engineers under the banner of NCCOEEE achieved strength and made good impression among the employees of power sector to fight against the anti people agenda The ministry of power recently announced that cabinet has been approved the proposed amendments, which indicates the need of further strengthening the agitation by including all the stakeholders to get the legislatures eye opened at the time of presenting the proposed amendment in Parliament.

Written By – Prakashan, KSEB Officers Association